What is the meaning of Art? Well ~ there’s no such thing. Art IS. Art brings us into this ISness as it breaks this ISness in the same instance.

I taught creative writing classes years back and found there are two common perceptions/fears I found cropping up in the students.

1. The thought that one couldn’t write, which created a hesitancy to put pen to paper. What this really is, is a concern that what one wants to say, to express, to creatively invent may be judged and not accepted, that one’s self worth is dependent on an opinion by an outside source.

2. They were afraid of openly expressing their thoughts and feelings on the writings of others.

So often, we shut up and lock up, literally our flow of essence into creation or sharing about creations because we are reluctant to cause an argument. Quite honestly, we are afraid of separation and lashed out irritation because of perceiving such. I loved the classes in college where we could all read a book and share about it openly, giving our thoughts and feelings that came up in the process of delving into the characters and specific story painted by the writer, without any of us feeling that the other was intentionally debating with us to cause friction.

Art is meant to bring us together. Yet art is also meant to bring us into all of the aspects that can separate us, the nuances, that make us human, which includes the light and the dark, the up and the down, the here and the there, and even beyond all of these. Art brings IN the circle of life and shows all of the lines that were drawn to create the sphere, yet even exposes the lines that go beyond what you can see. I recall in my younger years, when I would share a poem I wrote with my mother, she would say, “I don’t know. What do you want me to say?” I would respond, “whatever you want to say.” Therefore, “I don’t know” would suffice. She later did tell me that she remembers being ridiculed and redirected to the “right” answer if it was wrong in school. Hence this is where her hesitancy to even allow herself to feel or take in what I created came from and her reluctance to share with me. In art, there is no “right” or “wrong” answers. There is what you perceive, and what you allow yourself to receive, and THEN, those can change, again and again, and again, never giving you a concrete set response. This is the joy and the versatility of art. It allows us to be penetrated from deep within, to the core of who we think we are, for those pieces to be vibrated as they move around, recreating our self beyond self back into self. Art touches the places that are undefined, that can’t be defined, that lose their intention when we try to bring a definition in where one just doesn’t belong. Art is here and there but beyond, even beyond where our comprehension can travel.

Art is meant to ignite the existence of self, to bring about connection between very likely things and the most unlikely of things. It connects the things that aren’t connected. It brings the focus upon the illusions, for everything is connected. Yet it also highlights the connections, because everything is an illusion. Art intends to unite all things that seem to be separate, and separate things that seem to be connected. Within this, we are given the invitation to move into what we know and move beyond what we think we know, to the places of not knowing. As we accept this invitation into the unknown, all worlds and no worlds open up to us. We are in a place of presence. Art can bring us there as it joins us yet it is up to us, each one of us, how we recreate or what we erase there. This is the field that Rumi brings our awareness to, “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” Yet he goes on further, “When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other” doesn’t make any sense.” Ah, but us humans, conceptual beings that we are, desire to take what we experience and confine it into words. This is where words fail, where words can bring about separation rather than union. Art is meant to bring us profoundly into the union of things by the path of distinguishing between things while taking away that which distinguishes. In these moments of using words to express what flows through our human vessels while we were in the field, it is best to just not attach to them and let them continue to move the energy within and around. Stay IN that field while you are not in the field. Be in the balance of both. This is where art exists, as it persists in its attempt to reside there.

Why is it that we desire to watch a movie or read a book and then continue to take in the sequels or prequels? Because there is something that we connect with in the story which mirrors or enhances our own story, OR gives us something entirely new as it reconnects us to existence. However, what it also does is add upon our story, giving something that wasn’t there before, a thought, a feeling, an aha epiphany that can be added upon our life experience, enhancing it. Art is meant to touch is, recreate us, bring us beyond what we know, and of course, to be ok with admitting that we don’t know. Does it always go back to being ok with not knowing? “Right” or “wrong” comes from a desire to know, to be the one who knows… what if things just are? Really, they ARE!

This in itself, what you are reading is art. Let it move you, let it soothe you, let it incite feelings in you, thoughts in you, and then just let them flow. All that you are reading here is not right, or wrong, it just IS.

Art is. Art brings us into this ISness as it breaks this ISness in the same instance.

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Watch this video ~ let it take you on a journey… see if you can remain in the balance, not one side or the other…

“Why should I trust my life to something that isn’t there?” “Learn to listen… cleanse your eyes.”

***Inspired after reading this on ART. I recommend you read and listen if you enjoy this topic*** How the Division of High vs. Low Robs Culture of its Essence.

At the end of this movie, which ends completely unexpectedly!!!!!!!!!!! I’m not saying anything else in case you decide to watch it. It totally opened up the waterways in my eyes and out poured an abundance of tears. What I felt was the profound complete journey of each step that I have taken thus far, and all that I feel unfolding on the rest of this journey (though mind you, I don’t know all of what is to come ~ what would life be like if we knew everything? ). I was in such a humble, open space full of the deepest gratitude for the journey to experiencing divine, sacred love and its infinite capacity to connect beyond form. I have had many dreams with my father since he passed in addition to feeling him beyond our bodies. I have had the same experience with my Beloved, whom I shall be able to embrace physically soon, not without tears, I’m sure of that. It feels as though my journey has been one of knowing the sweetness of divine love so deep within my core pieces of my being, and holding to this throughout everything I’ve experienced as I watch all that I have been given from within ~ the visions, the emotions, the intuition ~ unfold in my life as I know it anew THROUGH the experience and witnessing of it. I am blessed, truly blessed. All of you are blessed too.

May you allow yourself to review, to view your whole journey of life up to this point, feel the love that has grown in you, that you are sharing with others. You can choose again right now, to feel this love more profoundly flowing through you, to balance that vibration of love as you give it to others you encounter, and allow it to come back upon you. Look right into the moments that have seemed harsh or bitter to you and see what you have been given through the experience. Where do you see the love given and received? I love you so very much and wish that you continue to see the love around you and to cherish the love in your life.

Much love for a blessed rest of your weekend,
~Gabriella Hartwell

P.S. Sometimes when I do look back upon the steps along my journey, I am in amazement for my unwavering trust and faith in the inevitable reunion of love’s embrace. I am blessed to have been given this undying, everlasting, and infinitely growing depth of love inside of me. I have always held true to it, never faltered, nor altered the love that is my unique vibration. This is the blessing.

Take my love with you.
Let it be the light that sees you through,
Chase away your blues.
Where you go and what you do,
Take my love with you.

I’ll be your talisman.
I’ll be your lucky charm.
Put it in your pocket.
Put it in your heart.
Then in your weakness, baby, just let it help you along.
And make you strong

Take my love with you.
Let it be the light that sees you through,
Chase away your blues.
Where you go and what you do.
Take my love with you.
Take my love with you.
Take my love with you.

And if the world around you begins to crumble and fall,
It wouldn’t matter at all

Take my love with you.
Let it be the light that sees you through,
Chase away your blues.
Where you go and what you do
Take my love with you.
Let it be the light that sees you through,
Chase away your blues.
Where you go and what you do,
Take my love with you.
Take my love with you.
Take my love with you.
Take my love with you.

“If I’m the one person who has something nice to say about you, I know you better than anyone else.”

Within you, you have a unique gift(s) to bask within which can give you comfort and joy, and as you bring those gifts into expression into the world, you have an infinite capacity to bless the lives of others. The words we choose to let flow within us and outside of us combined with our actions and emotions have such a huge impact on the world we reside in. Everyone along our path benefits from what we emit and the frequencies that we are sending forth. You always have a choice on how you decide to be the love that you are and let that love come back upon you. This is such a sweet and gentle movie that brings about the remembrance that in each moment, within each day, we truly have the power to not only give ourselves the joy of being love, but we can inspire others and we can give to others, which brings a smile to the faces of those we encounter. For how short life here on Earth is, every experience, within every relationship, is a world waiting to be explored and played in. May this movie remind you of the impact you have on others for the choices you make along your path not only affect you, but everyone around you as well.

*Here is the MP3 link if you choose to listen or download it*

Have you witnessed yourself trying to figure things out, wanting to piece things together? With everything that happens do you try to understand it so that you know or so that you feel that you know? Does it matter if you know? We spend so much time wanting to know, putting the energy into piecing things together so that we feel we have a grasp on things. Yet if we didn’t do that, where would the energy go? The energy would go into experiencing what is happening, experiencing the moment, being fully present  within the moment or moments that are happening. By letting go of the desire to know everything right now, to put everything together right now, you allow yourself to experience right now, to bask within it, to be within it, to create within it, to play within it, to have fun within it!

Five, six, seven steps down the road you may look back on what has unfolded and understand, but it’s not because you put so much energy into trying to understand and piecing things together, holding your head with frustration that you don’t know in those moments.  Rather you’ve moved along the journey and allowed each moment to take you beyond shape and reshape you. It is the journey, the intended journey is for you to really experience each moment along it. It is through the experience that you discover who you are now. Each moment is adding upon who you are, what you desire, how you truly wish to create, what you really choose to focus on, what you want to put your energy towards and in. What you may have thought was so important to figure out may very well not be anything you need to figure out. “I don’t know” is a very powerful place to be. It really brings you into the balance, into the middle ground, not there and not another future there, but right here and now. You are not wondering what has been, why it has been. You’re not wondering what will be and how it will be. You just ARE, breathing, being, living. We so often go through not living. Wondering and thinking all the time is not living. Living is really in the experience of being alive and feeling all of the nuances of what being alive is.

In these moments, when you allow yourself to be and experience deeply, profoundly within them, you receive inspiration. You discover. You remember. Such a gift you give yourself, you give everyone, when you fully allow yourself to be right here and now, when you allow yourself to admit by speaking it, by feeing it, by thinking it, “I don’t know.” Many of you may experience if you are speaking this to someone, a response like “what do you mean you don’t know?” You may respond back, “simply, I don’t know.” We live in a world where we have so much and for so long been programmed to know, to need to know. You are important if you know. You are understood if you know. You are accepted if you know. Yet I think it’s interesting because many people who express that they know something and this type of knowing I’m talking about is through the experience but not through the factual, where people can tangibly understand or see what this person is expressing they know, that’s not considered valid. However the true knowing comes about in that way, through the experience, through feeling, through the knowing that cannot be grasped with the hand right here and now, possibly. How do we come about this knowing? By letting go of trying to figure things out. By allowing ourselves to come to that knowing through the experience. “I don’t know” is the way to get there.

Another way we could label or term this is surrender. You are surrendering into right now. You are surrendering into the experience. You are following what you know by what you feel so that what you feel becomes what you know, fully, deeply and profoundly know. This is the knowing not from the mind but from deep within your essence. Then there comes a time where that knowing through the experience will merge with the knowing from the mind. Therefore, you will be able to, at some point, if you choose to, verbally express it to others, or write it, however way you create in expression so that others can witness, be a witness to your experience, to your journey that brought you to that knowing.

Even if we take something factual, like a scientist who has a hypothesis, has a theory and he wants to see if it’s accurate. He has a hypothesis but in that moment that he has a hypothesis, what he does is he surrenders, hopefully. He surrenders into that moment, “ok now I have this hypothesis, I’m going to just let this go because now I’m going to be in the experience of allowing this hypothesis to prove itself true.” Through the experience, within the experiment, the knowing comes about. The awareness of if the hypothesis is accurate comes. It’s not through the scientist sitting there with his hands on his head wondering if the hypothesis is true and how he can piece things together to make the hypothesis true. It is through the surrendering and allowing the experience, that brings about the knowing from within to merge with the knowing from the mind, bringing about an understanding.

It is almost like we hold on, we hold on to what we are in right now, what we’re experiencing right now, what we have right now and then we let it go. When I say let it go, I don’t mean go through it out the door, put it in the river and let it go away. I mean releasing the tight grasp that we have on it. We’re still experiencing it and we’re still within it, but we aren’t holding on so tightly. We are allowing the fluid emotion of it all to flow. Emotion is energy in motion. If we try to stop energy from flowing, there becomes blockage, resistance, fear. That’s not what we intend. We intend to really, fully BE. Grasp onto what you’re experiencing right now, be in it, feel it, let it consume you! And then release it. Surrender.

Instead of wondering, “why is this happening?” “If this is happening, what must happen next?” all of these other things that can bring you into the grasping energy, allow the flowing that always is in each moment, that always desires to be in movement. I can guarantee you that if you encounter each moment like this, such a liberating feeling you will have that will just continue to increase and it will enfold you. You will begin to live as though you are in a river, literally, flowing along with the current, with each moment, with each experience. Your life will be so rewarding and so fulfilling. You don’t waste any time when you’re in those moments of trying to figure things out and wondering because that in itself is an experience. The divine essence of life allows you to be in that experience, to discover, come to the clarification of, “I don’t like this. This is not exciting for me.” When we have moments and experiences that don’t exactly seem pleasant, they are gifts. They allow you to recognize that you don’t enjoy having that experience. Therefore you can make another choice and create a different experience. If you feel right now, while you’re reading this, that you’re not exactly living like you are in the river, moving along in that way, with constant surrender, constant basking in each moment, it’s okay.

Every moment you are in you are receiving and you also have opportunities to give. Instead of trying to figure out why something is happening, how it should be happening, trying to piece things together, trying to know, allow yourself the freedom to just be in it.  Instead ask yourself, “what am I receiving here?” and “what can I give here?” “how can I be love here?” and “how can I receive love here?” such a different vibration and it is so rewarding. This is what I wish for you. As you continue to move through this year of 2013, which we are halfway through now, moving into the halfway mark, choose right now how you want to flow into the rest of this year. Whatever you choose, may you enjoy it. May you allow yourself to really fully immerse and bask within it. This is the joy of being alive. I send you so much love within the deepest places of my heart to you. Such an abundance of joy here for you, in every moment, if you just open, you allow it. If you just open so that you can see it.

“I don’t know” surrenders you to the experience and to the moment in a profound state of non attachment, where all you have to do is hold onto the sides of the seat you are sitting upon because the ride has taken off and you are flowing with it, in all its sweet invitation to adventure and exploration, inspiration and creation.

Everything and everyone so intimately connects. The experience of this brings you OUT of this world and back INTO it anew.

Sending you all waves of love from my heart to yours,
~Gabriella Hartwell

If you’ve ever wondered what is true or what is false in your life experience, what is accurate and not so with the characters in your life journey, if you haven’t believed what you’ve been told because it just seems so unrealistic, this is a movie for you. Or even if you have believed what could be considered “crazy” or just too “out there,” this is a movie for you. It encourages you to go beyond the desire to bring all of the details of events and moments in life into a cohesive place so that they can be digested and understood. Instead, it invites you to be okay with the mystery, to allow the opening unto the fantastical, and to ride the waves of the adventures in each moment, within each step along this glorious journey of being alive. Through the movie, the son, who wants to know the facts just as eagerly as he is rejecting as mere nonsense what is being given by his father, discovers that many of the stories he brushed off as fabrications and fiction were actually true. Tis not so much the stories themselves, but the way the stories are brought to life that is important. The son does discover a new found connection and understanding of the essence of his father, beyond what any story could actually give him. It’s truly a movie to be cherished. Many lines within it are profound and beg you to hold hands with them, letting them soak into your psyche.

~Gabriella Hartwell

If any of you desire to share more intimately, I am here. Sessions and Readings

An abundance of waves of love from my heart to yours,
~Gabriella Hartwell